In the software and information services industry, I foresee a merger of software and content. We’ve certainly seen over the past decades software supplementing or replacing tasks that formerly were performed through use of content assets. Example: tax software for filling out tax returns that in the 1950’s required pencil, paper and some sort of tax reference book. Tax calculation has a level of predictability and standardization not present for many other tasks performed by tax, legal and regulatory professionals (these principles apply equally to the health sector, but my background is not in health). Content fully integrated into the tax compliance software environment can increase customers’ confidence in act on a particular workflow step in the software. But I see a an even bigger future for these two inputs. Read further >

Lawyers and accountants find it helpful to bookmark documents during the course of their research. Many professional research products offer research folders in which documents can be bookmarked. Researchers can give their folders a name, typically for a client or a research topic, as well as write notes on the individual documents. Typically, a research folder in a professional research product can bookmark only content inside that particular research product. Read further >

Innovation has been an essential component of Wolters Kluwer throughout its 175-year history. There are direct connections between Jan-Berend Wolters’ and Aebele Everts Kluwer’s innovations in textbook publishing from the 1800’s and today’s innovations at Wolters Kluwer in mobility, collaboration, advanced search, and the evolution towards hybrid content-software solutions. Read further >

Recently I posted about social media in government, particularly government’s presence in social media. I noted how government’s increasing presence in Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc., can inspire the private sector in integrating social media with commentary and explanations. I’d like to dig deeper into the topic from another perspective. Take a look at Regulations.gov. Click on “Advanced Search.” Place a checkmark next to “Open for Comment” and click “Search.” You’ll see a results list of US government regulatory activity that is, literally, open for comments. You’ll also find several submissions of comments by citizens about regulatory activity. You can click “Submit a Comment” to offer your own thoughts about regulatory activity. Every comment receives a “Comment Tracking Number” that enables its later retrieval. Users also can find comments by keyword search. Regulations.gov reminds me a bit of Facebook but with a focus on regulations. Each proposed regulation in Regulations.gov has its own “wall” just like each member of Facebook. Read further >

Government is increasing its presence on social media. On YouTube you can find (by way of example) the following agencies and offices of the US government: Securities and Exchange Commission, Internal Revenue Service and Government Printing Office. Governments have a presence on Twitter. You can follow on Twitter the European Union, the Compte officiel du Ministre de l’Éducation nationale of France, and the Home Office of the United Kingdom. It’s clear that the use of social media by government – as part of the Open Government movement, will only increase. This presents some interesting questions. Read further >

Compare the official electronic version of the Federal Register with an unofficial version called Federal Register 2.0. Which do you prefer? I prefer Federal Register 2.0 which is based in XML and a manifestation of the US government’s Open Government Initiative. This initiative aims to make government more transparent and collaborative as well as to enable citizens to more easily participate in government. One of the ways that the US government is fulfilling that goal is making Federal agencies’ work product more accessible through the use of XML. You can learn more about Federal Register 2.0 by watching one YouTube video from the US Government Printing Office and a second from the US National Archives. The video from the National Archives describes how the technique of open innovation was used to create Federal Register 2.0. Read further >

A value-added service in many public search engines has been auto-complete and pre-search suggested searches for searchers. You go to Google or Bing and begin typing a query, for example, “bus”, and Google’s auto-complete suggests “bus times,” “business links,” “business for sale,” and “bus timetable.” This feature is very helpful in several aspects. By displaying alternative word forms, the researcher has the opportunity to discover a better formulated version of his or her query. The suggestions might be words that are directly related to the searcher’s intent but which also serve to expand or refine the user’s search. Auto-complete in mobile devices, where the logic seems to be driven by an app in the smartphone itself, such as in my iPhone, can be quite annoying because frequently the suggested terms are wholly unrelated to my search intent and I experience it as low value-add, in fact, a nuisance. But I’ve adapted my search workflow to the iPhone. Read further >

Recently I made a post about creating meaningful user experiences in a multichannel world. That post talked about the issues of leveraging a single content asset over a variety of devices. I am an early adopter of mobile devices and my personal collection has expanded to include an iPad, iPhone, and Kindle Fire for personal use and a Blackberry for business use. I use Blackberry, by the way, only for email and phone calls. The recent addition of the Kindle Fire has made me look at the issue of multichannel user experience in greater depth. Here are specific examples of the issues: Read further >

Creating a positive user experience out of a single content asset is more challenging than ever. Just think about a single treatise. It can be available today in print, CD-ROM, as an ebook on the Kindle device, the Kindle Cloud Reader or the Kindle iPad app. It could be available on the Kindle Fire, taking advantage of color and graphics. It could be available as a PDF accessible through the Kindle, iPad, or a PC’s deskt0p. There are many ways to make it available through the iPhone. It also could be accessed through a Web-based research application, such as IntelliConnect. In the context of Web-based research applications, user experience can differ according to the type of browser used – Safari, Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer – and even the version of a particular browser, such as Internet Explorer 8 versus Internet Explorer 9. Early adopters might be experimenting with Internet Explorer 10. It’s a multichannel, multi-browser world. Read further >

Private publishers such as Wolters Kluwer have long been an essential part of the tax, legal & regulatory content value chain. Traditionally they have aggregated, organized, linked, and explained primary and secondary sources of law so that professional practitioners — lawyers and accountants — can help their clients better predict the consequences of their decisions. Print-based aggregation in looseleafs and treatises over time transformed into digital aggregation in full-text searchable databases organized by document type and/or practice area. Digital aggregation is challenging because government sources of law, including legislative, judicial, and executive branches of government, make their data available in different formats according to their own schedules. If these different government entities could make their data available using uniform standards, private publishers would be able to aggregate primary sources of law more quickly. Of course, that would mean that explanations, linking, and topical organization could occur more quickly. This is how I view the promise of 5-star linked data for tax, legal & regulatory publishers. Read further >